Dana Marie Bell wrote her first short story when she was thirteen years old. She attended the High School for Creative and Performing Arts for creative writing, where freedom of expression was the order of the day. When her parents moved out of the city and placed her in a Catholic high school for her senior year she tried desperately to get away, but the nuns held fast, and she graduated with honors despite herself. She's now a best selling author with Samhain Publishing and Carina Press.Dana has lived primarily in the Northeast with a brief stint on the US Virgin Island of St. Croix. She lives with her soul-mate and husband Dusty, their two maniacal children, an evil ice-cream stealing cat and a bull terrier that thinks it's a Pekinese. She's been heard to describe herself as "vertically challenged" and "a lapsed brunette." Dana also suffers from arthritis and can be seen walking with a cane or tooling around in her mobility scooter. Her condition was the inspiration for Belle's hip injury in Steel Beauty.You can learn more about Dana at:http://www.danamariebell.comhttp://danamariebell.blogspot.comYou can join her newsletter at:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themagicandmayhemnewsletter/